📖 Introduction

🌿 In this meaningful teaching, Master Woo Myung explains why we must venerate our ancestors. Ancestor veneration is not merely tradition—it is rooted in the understanding that we are not separate from those who came before us.

According to Master Woo Myung, ancestors remain connected to their descendants. Respecting and performing ancestral rites is a way of honoring that unity and ensuring harmony between generations. ✨

Through reverence, one receives the invisible yet powerful virtue of yin, which supports and sustains life.

🕊️ Original Writing by Master Woo Myung

Why must we venerate our ancestors?

Ancestors are all of our predecessors since the progenitors of mankind. We perform ancestral rites for the following reasons: first, we are not separate from our ancestors. Second, our ancestors’ souls are unable to let go of the habits they had as human beings and they look for food for a hundred years. Therefore, we must respect and venerate them by performing ancestral rites for our ancestors up to the fourth generation before us. Third, we must ensure they do not feel sad and neglected. Fourth, we must think that they are living with us. Fifth, we were born through their bodies, so we are actually living with them. Therefore, we must not sadden them. Sixth, we can receive the virtue of yin only when we venerate them. The virtue of yin is invisible, but we live by its strength. Often there are things that are impossible, no matter how hard one tries. We must have the virtue of yin if things are to work out smoothly. Therefore, we must venerate our ancestors.

The descendants of families who properly perform ancestral rites live good lives. One’s ancestors are his own self, and he is his ancestors, so we must not neglect them. These are the reasons we must perform ancestral rites.

— Woo Myung

🌠 Reflect at Santa Clara Meditation

At Santa Clara Meditation, life is understood as continuous and interconnected. 🌌

We are not isolated beings—we are extensions of those who came before us. Honoring ancestors is honoring the origin of our existence. Through respect and remembrance, harmony flows between past and present.

The visible world stands upon invisible foundations.
Yin virtue sustains life in ways we cannot see.